10 things you need to know about the iPhone 6S Plus

There are some big changes

The iPhone 6S Plus is here. It's the second go at Apple's 5.5-inch phablet design, and from a distance it looks pretty much just like last year's phone.

Should we be angry? Should we be disappointed?

There are actually loads of changes, big and small, in this year's new Apple giganto-phone. Here are the 10 things you definitely need to take on-board about this year's iPhone phablet upgrade.

1. It's the same size

Apple hasn't messed with the size of the iPhone 6S Plus. No surprise there. It only blew the design up to 5.5 inches in 2014, and now would just be too soon to make the phone even bigger.

It has a 5.5-inch screen as before, and still has a 1920 x 1080 pixel IPS LCD screen. Apple clearly thinks the 4K Sony Xperia Z5 Premium is bonkers just like we do. For the spec-heads out there, the display gets you density of 401ppi.

2. You can get it in rose gold colour

Tired of space grey and and silver? Wouldn't touch a gold phone with a bargepole? Apple will now make its phones in 'rose gold'.

It's not really gold at all, but a sort of pinky shade that is probably not going to be embraced by big burly blokes whose pecs you can see through their shirts. But, hey, who knows?

If you won't want the new shade, you can still get the iPhone 6S Plus in gold, space grey or silver.

3. iPhones are now that bit stronger

The bodies are made from 'all new' 7000 series aluminium, so basically a stronger version of the aluminium used in the iPhones of the last few generations. It's likely because of all the fuss made after someone claimed to have bent their iPhone by keeping it in their pocket while… well, sitting down.

Apple has upscaled the glass on the front too. It now says the iPhone 6S Plus now has the strongest mobile phone glass around, a clear suggestion that it's better than the Gorilla Glass 4 we see in quite a lot of phones these days.

How hard is it? That we don't know, but Apple says it's made using a dual-ion exchange process, which sounds suitably scientific and impressive. Expect to see the first iPhone 6S Plus destruction videos appear in about two weeks.

4. 3D Touch is the ForceTouch we've been looking for

Probably the main new exciting tech to obsess over this year is something called 3D Touch. You may have seen this rumoured as ForceTouch, but apparently Apple's not calling the technology this for its iPhones.

It gets you the same basic function as we saw in the new MacBook though: the iPhone 6S Plus can tell between hard presses and softer ones.

How? It uses a sensor layer to discern the subtle differences in the distance between the front glass layer and the backlight as you press down. Yep, your phone isn't quite as immovable as it seems. What this will let iOS 9 do is to give you quicker access to some of your favourite features, and bring up quick menus in apps before they're even launched. Devs will also be able to use it as a 'gesture' within apps, we imagine.

5. New Touch ID is twice as fast

The fingerprint scanner of the iPhone 6S Plus looks just like the old one. However, Apple says the new phone has a second-generation Touch ID sensor that is twice as fast as the old version.

We think the first one is pretty snappy as it is, so with any luck this one should be incredibly fast. We recently saw a 'second-generation' scanner from Huawei in its Mate S phone, and one of the lead benefits there is that it works better when dealing with a wet/moist digits. Fingers crossed Apple will have worked this sort of optimisation in too.